Extra-judicial confession cannot always form the basis of conviction
An extra-judicial confession statement alone cannot form the basis to confirm conviction in a case, when the same is deemed ‘doubtful’ or surrounded by suspicious circumstances. If the extra-judicial confession has to form the basis for conviction, it must not suffer from any material discrepancies or inherent improbabilities.
The Supreme Court, in Vijay Shankar vs State of Haryana case, held that - i) the extra-judicial confession is a weak evidence by itself, and it has to be examined by the court with great care and caution; ii) it should be made voluntarily and should be truthful; iii) it should inspire confidence; iv) it attains greater credibility and evidentiary value if it is supported by a chain of cogent circumstances and further corroborated by other prosecution evidence; v) it essentially has to be proved like any other fact and in accordance with the law.
In one of the appeals before the High Court, the appellant-accused challenged the sentence imposed by the trial court, wherein she was convicted for the offence under IPC Sections 302 (punishment for murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence). The accused was sentenced to undergo life imprisonment.
She allegedly caused the death of a boy by throttling his neck and later poured kerosene over the body and set him on fire to destroy the evidence. The police registered a case based on a complaint filed by the father of the deceased. During the course of the investigation, it was found that the complainant had admonished the accused for having an ‘illicit relationship’ with another person. This could be considered a motive for commission of offence. However, the alleged motive was not established by cogent material. Further, the allegation that the accused was last seen with the deceased before commission of offence also remained disproved.
After a few days, the accused went up to the village revenue officer and made a confession admitting her guilt. The VRO recorded her confession and took her to the police station. Based on the confession of the accused, the police framed a chargesheet against her before the trial court. Relying on the evidence of prosecution witnesses, the trial court convicted the accused and sentenced her to life imprisonment. However, challenging the same, she filed an appeal before the High Court.
The counsel for the appellant-accused contended that there were no eye-witnesses to the incident and the circumstances relied upon by the prosecution did not connect the accused with the crime. As for the extra-judicial confession, the evidence of VRO cannot be considered since he acted as a panch witness in all the proceedings in the present case, the counsel argued.
On the other hand, the State public prosecutor contended that the evidence brought on record was sufficient to convict the accused and that there was no reason or justification to disbelieve the same.
After hearing the case and perusing the material on record, the High Court found that there were, in fact, no eye-witnesses to the incident and the case solely rested on the circumstantial evidence. Further, the father of the deceased, admitted that he was not aware as to the exact reason for death of his son. From the evidence of the witnesses, it can safely be concluded that they are wholly unreliable; based on such testimony, it may not be proper for the court to hold the accused guilty, the court opined.
With regard to the extra-judicial confession made by the appellant before the VRO, the court said that latter was a stranger to the accused. He acted as a mediator to the observation of scene of offence, inquest report, panch for seizure of objects and also for arrest of the accused. Therefore, it is improbable to believe that the accused, who has no prior acquaintance with the VRO, would have gone to him and made an extra-judicial confession admitting her guilt. It may not be safe to act on the alleged extra-judicial confession made by the accused before the VRO, the court observed, while relying on the guidelines laid down by the apex court in various such cases.
The High Court, while allowing the appeal, held that the prosecution had failed to establish the guilt of the appellant-accused in the said offences and set aside the judgment of the lower court.